大象传媒

Democracy is a simple concept: People exercise their collective agency to rule themselves so they can ensure their own well-being. Democracy is the opposite of autocracy, serving as a disavowal of monarchs and militarists claiming the right to govern people without their consent. 

Not surprisingly, . A Pew Research Center survey of people in 24 nations in 2023 revealed that 70% of people support direct democracy, with the percentage rising to 77% support for representative democracy. However, since democracy is designed to equalize power among people, it tends to be a work in progress. Even in functioning democracies, and use it to their ends, while those who have less power struggle for their fair share. 

The United States鈥斺�攚as once regarded as a shining example of that form of government. But now, people around the world are disappointed in the nation鈥檚 approach to democracy. A of people in 34 nations concluded that only about 21% of those surveyed believe the U.S. offers a good model of democracy for the world, while 40% believe the U.S. used to be a source of inspiration but is no longer. The view from within is hardly better: Most people in the U.S. tend to distrust the government, with only about at any given time since 2007. 

Their suspicions are justified, as , a researcher at , explains: 鈥淭he data suggests that the U.S. is less democratic now than it was a decade ago, even though it remains much more democratic than it was for most of its history.鈥� 

Because of the incredible promise it holds, democracy is fraught with contradictions and often triggers deep dissatisfaction when it doesn鈥檛 live up to its ideals. Indeed, . Herre found that the number of people living in democracies fell from 3.9 billion in 2016 to 2.3 billion in 2023, and that more people are living in countries that are autocratizing.聽

To understand why democracies are in decline, it鈥檚 worth examining how systems are enacted. The devil is often in the details. In the space between our decision-making and the enactment of those decisions, nefarious and power-hungry actors can hijack processes and sow the seeds of autocracy. 

There are many ways to strengthen democracy amid a rise in authoritarianism. It begins with voters making wise choices: 鈥淧eople can work toward making [the U.S.] more democratic by voting for pro-democracy candidates,鈥� Herre notes. Indeed, we tend to equate democracy with voting鈥攖he most tangible way representative democracy is enacted and a critical step in choosing the public servants who make decisions on our behalf. Beyond that, Herre suggests that to make democracy more inclusive, what鈥檚 needed is 鈥渟upporting pro-democracy organizations, and expressing their support for democracy in protests and conversations.鈥� 

Unfortunately, contemporary systems of representative democracy have become popularity contests in which participants are called upon every couple of years to pick between exceedingly narrow choices. In the U.S. especially, the question of 鈥攁nd therefore participate in democracy鈥攈as been debated and legislated for centuries. 

Further, there are structural obstacles to voting baked into the U.S. Constitution, which is the definitive document laying out the rules of democracy and within which are embedded those devilish details that determine the responsiveness of the system. Even after adding various amendments to right historical wrongs, rather than individual voters when it comes to electing a president, and allows for the undemocratic, racist, and complicated Electoral College system. The Constitution also specifies the undemocratic makeup of the , a powerful body that allows smaller, whiter states to have the same power as larger, more racially diverse ones.聽

In other words, as Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation and author of , told 大象传媒 in 2022, the U.S. Constitution is 鈥渁 flawed document that needs to be perfected in order to achieve a level of fundamental fairness and equality that was 鈥� missing from the initial draft of it.鈥� 

He points out that none of the original authors of the Constitution or its amendments were women.鈥淸T]he same goes for LGBTQ communities. The same goes for racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in this country.鈥� 

If U.S. democracy is exclusionary by design, is it even a democracy at all? 

Democracy for Some

The U.S. Constitution was inspired not only by , but also by formations that had greater physical and temporal proximity to the nation鈥檚 modern founders. A acknowledged how the 鈥渙riginal framers of the Constitution 鈥� are known to have greatly admired the concepts, principles and government practices of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy,鈥� which today is referred to as the . 

鈥淥ur 鈥楩ounding Fathers鈥� based the U.S. Constitution on the Haudenosaunee Law of Peace,鈥� says Fern Naomi Renville, an enrolled member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota and Omaha nations, and a Seneca-Cayuga storyteller from Minnesota. Renville adds that acknowledges this debt to the Indigenous peoples of the land. 

鈥淎t the time when all of the 鈥楩ounding Fathers鈥� were having conversations, there were Native people at the table who were consulting 鈥� [and] giving input to the colonists, who weren鈥檛 all getting along, and they were being advised to come together in the way that the Haudenosaunee Tribes had,鈥� Renville says. 

Through their experience, Indigenous advisers showed the power in forming a union of disparate groups and modeled how settler colonialists could do the same to counter the power of the British Crown. However, Renville says some of the differences between the U.S. Constitution and the Haudenosaunee Law of Peace were deliberately designed to preserve power for those who already had it: wealthy white men. 

鈥淲hen people learn about the actual inspiration for the U.S. Constitution, it changes how we think about inclusion in those rights,鈥� says Renville. 鈥淚t changes how we might think about the Bill of Rights, which enshrines what are basically Haudenosaunee principles for good governance. 鈥� Just learning that might prompt people to do some growing around how we include everyone 鈥� men and women, rich and poor.鈥� 

Tribes centered women in their democratic structures, and did not operate as capitalists or enslavers. In contrast, the Constitution鈥檚 framers imported European ideas of women鈥檚 disenfranchisement, human enslavement, and even landownership and property rights. 

When in 1920, they were strongly influenced by Indigenous women who enjoyed political power and decision-making authority over land and food. In 2016, women鈥檚 studies historian Sally Roesch Wagner told that early white suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton 鈥渂elieved women鈥檚 liberation was possible because they knew liberated women, women who possessed rights beyond their wildest imagination: Haudenosaunee women.鈥� 

鈥淭he Haudenosaunee Law of Peace that the Constitution is based on relies on the power of the clan mothers as the ultimate authority,鈥� says Renville. 鈥淭hat is the one piece that got left out in the application of these ideas on the U.S. Constitution and so that might be a part of why these ideas haven鈥檛 been as successfully applied in our country that we have now.鈥� 

For example, the U.S. Constitution does not enshrine reproductive justice or the right to an abortion because, according to Mystal, 鈥�the Constitution did not treat women as full people.鈥� 

People of color and especially Black people were also excluded from the writing and passage of the , , and Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which ended enslavement, granted citizenship to African Americans, and legalized voting rights for Black men, respectively. And yet, white supremacist forces continued to curb the democratic rights of people of color until the civil rights movement forced passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

Calling it 鈥渢he most important piece of legislation ever passed in American history,鈥� Mystal attributes Barack Obama鈥檚 2008 presidential win to the Voting Rights Act. 鈥淔orty years after the civil rights movement, we end up with the first Black president,鈥� he says. 

U.S. democracy has suffered from constant push-and-pull factors, with excluded communities fighting for and winning rights, and reactionary forces working to undo those gains. Mystal laments how, after Obama鈥檚 election, the U.S. Supreme Court 鈥渆viscerated鈥� the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and spawned a slew of and dilute the impact of their votes. 

The exclusionary nature of U.S. democracy remains one of its central problems. Today, is seen as a continuation of slavery, with millions of people who are forced to and . 

History offers many lessons in strengthening democracy: After the U.S. incorporated the , a pay-to-play patchwork system that required people to pay taxes in order to vote, women, people of color, and low-income people overcame the corruptive power of money. Eventually, , a retired domestic worker, successfully challenged the poll tax through the 1966 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections Supreme Court ruling. 

And yet, the overrepresentation of wealth in politics remains one of the greatest challenges to U.S. democracy. A found that 83% of Republicans and Republican-leaning people in the U.S. and 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning people in the U.S. feel that big-money donors and special interest lobbyists 鈥渉ave too much influence on decisions made by members of Congress.鈥� 

What Renville considers 鈥渕ost terrifying鈥� today is 鈥渢he rulings that recognize corporations as equal to people, so that economic structures have more legal weight than a human being.鈥� 

Democracy is healthiest when there is greatest participation and power sharing, especially among those who have been historically excluded.鈥�

Gerald Horne, who holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, agrees money has too much influence in politics. He offers a salient piece of advice to those seeking to strengthen democracy: 鈥淵ou would have to democratize the economy to begin with,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen you don鈥檛 democratize the economy, the malefactors of great wealth鈥攁s [Theodore] Roosevelt used to say鈥攁re able to use their economic strength to put a thumb on the scale with regard to politics.鈥� A weighing scale is an apt metaphor for who has influence in U.S. democracy: The political power of historically marginalized people has been outweighed by the nefarious power of wealth and capital. 

Labor unions are microcosms of democracy and offer useful examples of how direct democracy via inclusive decision-making can counter the power of money. Horne says in the early part of the 20th century, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) tended to organize skilled workers but not low-wage workers such as secretaries in their quest for labor rights and better wages and benefits. 

In contrast, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) 鈥渨as organizing across the board, from top to bottom鈥� in auto plants, Horne adds. 鈥淥bviously the CIO model was more democratic than the AFL model.鈥� Ultimately, McCarthyism eroded the CIO, which was then absorbed by the AFL. 鈥淲e have not learned that much from unions,鈥� says Horne. 

Furthermore, unions are relatively small formations in which direct democracy is a more viable prospect than in nation states. Most of the world鈥檚 democracies are representative, which means that people choose leaders to make decisions on their behalf rather than making every decision themselves. In contrast, direct democracies allow people to directly choose policies that govern them. 

Direct Democracies Lead the Way

When it comes to large nations in particular, representative democracy seems more efficient than, say, how a small nation such as 鈥攐ne of the world鈥檚 only direct democracies鈥攊s run. A nation of fewer than 9 million, the Swiss elect seven councilors every four years to carry out the day-to-day functioning of the government and participate in popular votes up to four times a year on specific measures. It is the closest to a direct democracy the world has today. 

At more than 333 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous nation on the planet, behind India and China. It is also the third-largest in size, behind Russia and Canada. By virtue of its sheer population and geographic size, U.S. democracy is complicated. A republic of 50 states and various territories, the federal government shares sovereign power with state governments. It makes little sense for residents of, say, Maryland, to vote on an issue that disproportionately impacts Oregonians. 

About have some form of Switzerland-like direct democracy, allowing residents to regularly cast votes on ballot measures鈥攁 sound approach, at least on paper, to ensuring state-level governments remain responsive to their voters. But there is no direct democracy at the federal level, even for something as simple as choosing the president. 

The Electoral College, where citizens vote for state-level delegates, is arguably one of the biggest tools used to dilute the power of democratic federal representation. Those delegates in turn cast ballots for the president. This is one step removed from representative democracy and could even be considered . 

The complexity of the Electoral College system becomes most apparent every four years, when adults attempt to explain to the children around them that the path to the White House winds its way through a handful of so-called 鈥渟wing states.鈥� Watch the face of a young person contort in confusion over the fact that a Michigan ballot is far more consequential than one from California, and try to explain why such a system is allowed to define itself as democratic. 

The fact that the Electoral College makes it possible for a presidential nominee to win office even if they lose the popular vote鈥攚hich has happened , including twice in the past 25 years鈥攈as prompted many to call for its abolition. After all, minority rule is a hallmark of autocracy. About favor ending the Electoral College and want direct democracy鈥攁t least when it comes to choosing the president. 

鈥淲e don鈥檛 have to get into these complicated arguments about economic democracy and the power of billionaires,鈥� says Horne. 鈥淵ou can just start with the Electoral College. It鈥檚 obvious that the Electoral College reflects a belief on the part of the framers of the Constitution that those small percentages of a potential electorate that could vote were not trustworthy and so therefore you needed this intervening force 鈥� to 鈥榗orrect鈥� any 鈥榤istakes鈥� that voters had made.鈥� 

There are efforts underway to end the Electoral College system, the most promising of which is the, a state-by-state effort to end the winner-take-all electors system practiced by 48 out of 50 states. Although the Constitution specifies the use of electors, it doesn鈥檛 require states to award all electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote. Each state can therefore pass a law switching to proportional apportionment of electors and, as of , 17 states and the District of Columbia鈥攔epresenting 209 Electoral College votes鈥攈ave done so. When states representing the majority of electoral votes鈥�270鈥攑ass such laws, the Electoral College will effectively become a popular vote. 

Democratizing the Supreme Court

Another obstacle to people鈥檚 ability to rule themselves is the increasingly unaccountable U.S. Supreme Court, where only nine people with lifetime terms make decisions affecting hundreds of millions鈥攁 dynamic veering uncomfortably close to autocratic rule. 

The Court is prone to financial corruption, with justices having been found to from wealthy friends and then . It is also severely exclusionary in terms of race and gender鈥攐ut of 116 justices since the nation鈥檚 founding, . Moreover, justices are instead of interpreting laws鈥攊n effect becoming proxy legislators. 

鈥淥ne of the reasons why Republicans prefer to do certain things through the Supreme Court is that they can鈥檛 actually get them done at the ballot box, because they鈥檙e unpopular,鈥� says Mystal, who sees the Supreme Court as one of the biggest counterbalances to U.S. democracy. 鈥淧eople support women鈥檚 rights. People, now, support gay rights. Taking those away politically is difficult. That鈥檚 why they want the courts to do it.鈥� 

There are numerous ideas around reforming the Supreme Court, including 鈥攁 popular idea鈥攁nd creating a binding code of conduct. President Joe Biden has backed both these ideas, but so far, none of these efforts appear likely to come to fruition. 

Indigenous Democratic Principles

鈥淚 believe that how we treat land is how we treat people,鈥� says Renville. The sentiment captures another major difference between the U.S. form of democracy and the Indigenous democratic principles on which the U.S. Constitution was loosely based: Landownership, which is the root of individual financial accumulation and capitalism, had no place in the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace. 

Per Renville, 鈥渢he recognition of the 鈥榬ights of nature鈥欌�� is a critical piece of inclusion in the U.S. political system that can strengthen democracy. Humans exist within the context of their environment and consequently thrive when their environment is respected. Modern-day democratic systems tend not to consider the rights of nature. Yet, as Renville asserts, we need to begin incorporating 鈥渢he right of a river or a forest or a mountain or so forth to exist and to be preserved and protected for the future鈥� into our democratic system, as the Haudenosaunee did. 

There is precedent for such an idea. In 2008, in the world to vote on a new Constitution that centered the rights of nature and of natural systems to 鈥渆xist, flourish, and evolve.鈥� Remarkably, the idea originated in the U.S. and was pushed by a grassroots organization from San Francisco called the , and drafted with the help of the , which is based in Pennsylvania. Today, the is leading a worldwide effort to incorporate similar clauses in the constitutions of all democracies. 

Indigenous principles centering women and nature offer a pathway toward stronger democracy in the U.S. Renville cites the leadership of , the chairwoman of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in the Northwest U.S. Charles was 鈥渁 huge part of the force that brought down that Elwha Dam successfully and restored their ancestral beach, and restored the salmon run鈥� so that people could sustain themselves, according to Renville. 鈥淭hat kind of female leadership, I see it as being very connected to the ability to advocate for land and water, and to take care of our lands and people.鈥� After all, care for people and the land is the ultimate measure of success in any democracy. 

Democracy is healthiest when there is greatest participation and power sharing, especially among those who have been historically excluded. Or, as Herre concluded in a , 鈥淧eople turned previous autocratic tides by advocating relentlessly for governing themselves democratically. We have done it before, and can do it again.鈥�